Of all the many witty aphorisms conjured by Irish writer Oscar Wilde more than 100 years ago, none seems more appropriate to our age of instant media and celebrity culthood than this gem: "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."
Hmmmm -- I wonder if Tiger Woods is feeling Oscar right about now?
As television bloated its news cycle with coverage of Tiger-gate, and newspapers (including this one) plastered Woods on their front pages while relegating actual newsworthy news to inside pages, here are some lessons to be learned (and re-learned) about life on Planet Celebrity (like it or not, that's where you and I live):
For the famous and not-so-famous alike, remember Tricky Dick's Law -- a corollary of Murphy's Law that gets its name from disgraced President Richard Nixon: The cover-up will be viewed more harshly than the crime.
Schadenfreude. I first encountered this $10 word in a New York Times article during one of the political or celebrity scandals of the past decade or so -- perhaps Lewinsky-gate, Hugh Grant-gate, Mark Sanford-gate, Sen. Larry Craig Bathroom-gate, R. Kelly-gate, Eddie Murphy-gate, Woody Allen-gate, Michael "Cosmo Kramer" Richards-gate, Don Imus-gate, Dustin Diamond It's-Screech-in-a-Porn-Tape!-gate or Britney-No-Panties-gate (when Britney Spears had her very public meltdown -- how soon you forget!).
Schadenfreude is a German word that means "pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others."
Schadenfreude is why the National Tattletale, the National Inquiring-Minds-Wanna-Know and other tabloids and even mainstream newspapers (including this one) go ape-gaga with coverage of, say, a famous mega-millionaire who kills a fire hydrant with his Cadillac at the end of his driveway at his home in a gated community populated by other mega-millionaires.
For the record, I agree with the editors of this paper who plastered Tiger-gate on our front pages. We Americans love us some schadenfreude!
If we had put the story in its proper place -- a two-inch brief on Page 20 in the Z section -- then we would have annoyed 99.7 percent of you, our readers, by making you work to get your schadenfreude on. (And a certain newspaper columnist might have missed his opportunity to pontificate about schadenfreude.)
Labeling every scandal with the sub-fix "gate." The blame for this lies, of course, with Tricky Dick Nixon and that Watergate thing. (Yes, Dick, we still have you to kick around.)
Yes, I agree that Dustin Diamond It's-Screech-in-a-Porn-Tape!-gate is a bit cumbersome (although it nicely sums up all we care to know about that incident).
But we journalists get a pass for coining Tiger-gate. After all, the incident took place in a gated community and in the vicinity of the gate to Tiger's mansion-fortress.
Whenever a new "-gate" explodes here on Planet Celebrity, both you famous folks and us commoners would do well to recall more words from Oscar Wilde: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
Hmmmm -- I wonder if Tiger Woods is feeling Oscar right about now?
As television bloated its news cycle with coverage of Tiger-gate, and newspapers (including this one) plastered Woods on their front pages while relegating actual newsworthy news to inside pages, here are some lessons to be learned (and re-learned) about life on Planet Celebrity (like it or not, that's where you and I live):For the famous and not-so-famous alike, remember Tricky Dick's Law -- a corollary of Murphy's Law that gets its name from disgraced President Richard Nixon: The cover-up will be viewed more harshly than the crime.
Schadenfreude. I first encountered this $10 word in a New York Times article during one of the political or celebrity scandals of the past decade or so -- perhaps Lewinsky-gate, Hugh Grant-gate, Mark Sanford-gate, Sen. Larry Craig Bathroom-gate, R. Kelly-gate, Eddie Murphy-gate, Woody Allen-gate, Michael "Cosmo Kramer" Richards-gate, Don Imus-gate, Dustin Diamond It's-Screech-in-a-Porn-Tape!-gate or Britney-No-Panties-gate (when Britney Spears had her very public meltdown -- how soon you forget!).
Schadenfreude is a German word that means "pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others."
Schadenfreude is why the National Tattletale, the National Inquiring-Minds-Wanna-Know and other tabloids and even mainstream newspapers (including this one) go ape-gaga with coverage of, say, a famous mega-millionaire who kills a fire hydrant with his Cadillac at the end of his driveway at his home in a gated community populated by other mega-millionaires.
For the record, I agree with the editors of this paper who plastered Tiger-gate on our front pages. We Americans love us some schadenfreude!
If we had put the story in its proper place -- a two-inch brief on Page 20 in the Z section -- then we would have annoyed 99.7 percent of you, our readers, by making you work to get your schadenfreude on. (And a certain newspaper columnist might have missed his opportunity to pontificate about schadenfreude.)
Labeling every scandal with the sub-fix "gate." The blame for this lies, of course, with Tricky Dick Nixon and that Watergate thing. (Yes, Dick, we still have you to kick around.)
Yes, I agree that Dustin Diamond It's-Screech-in-a-Porn-Tape!-gate is a bit cumbersome (although it nicely sums up all we care to know about that incident).
But we journalists get a pass for coining Tiger-gate. After all, the incident took place in a gated community and in the vicinity of the gate to Tiger's mansion-fortress.
Whenever a new "-gate" explodes here on Planet Celebrity, both you famous folks and us commoners would do well to recall more words from Oscar Wilde: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
